Welcome to "The Circle"
Relational Leadership Group Trainings: A space for radical honesty, embodied presence, and a new way of relating. Where you don’t have to perform, manage others’ comfort, or hide the fullness of who you are.
What is "The Circle"?
In these intimate, facilitated small groups based on the powerful methodology of T-Groups, we drop the masks and explore what’s really happening in real time—with ourselves and each other.
We grow our capacity to speak truth, stay in connection through challenge, and discover what becomes possible when we gather without roles, hierarchies, or pretenses.
This is not therapy. This is not coaching. This is practice. Real-time, heart-forward, liberating relational practice.
It’s not a social hour, and not a casual gathering — it’s a deep practice in presence, relational awareness, and courageous self-expression and leadership.
How Is "The Circle" Unique?
The Circle is influenced by T-Group, a relational practice that’s taught in places like Stanford and leadership labs. What makes our circles unique is that they are specifically designed for people who are interested in "relational leadership".
Relational leadership is the capacity to show up fully—in life, leadership, and partnership—with centeredness, clarity, and deep connection: to self, to other, and to our deeper missions. It is the ability to meet challenges without shrinking, compromising, over-controlling, or dominating. Instead, relational leadership emerges from grounded self-awareness and the skill to speak one's truth while staying available, curious, and attuned to the other and to the impact we are having around us.
This is not just about relational skills — it’s about reclaiming our aliveness, together. It’s about untying ourselves from cultural and conditioned ways of being that keeps us from being truly sovereign in our own self-leadership, influence and power.
"I stopped 'performing' leadership and started inhabiting it. I now am able to speak with more clarity and presence—not to prove something, but because I know who I am. The ripple effects on those I work with is tangible."
— Natalie
Is The Circle A Good Fit For You?
This may be right for you if:
- You’re ready to look at the relational strategies you’ve used to stay in connection with others that no longer serve you, like people-pleasing or over-functioning
- You’re curious about how other people experience you and what your impact is on others in real time
- You’re ready to explore the parts of yourself you usually keep hidden
- You’re ready to develop your next levels of growth in skilfully giving and receiving feedback and taking accountability
- You want to take your own self-leadership, influence and power to another level
- You want real depth and connection with others
What You Will Walk Away With
You’ll walk away with practices you can carry into everyday life—in leadership, with partners, friends, and colleagues, as well as:
- Deepened Self-Awareness: Attunement to what you feel, want, and need in the moment—not weeks later.
- Relational Intelligence & Courage: Skillfulness in navigating interpersonal dynamics—especially in moments of discomfort, difference, or conflict
- Healing Relational Wounds & Reclaiming Connection: Transform old patterns of competition, scarcity, and betrayal into trust, authenticity, and mutual uplift. Let the mask drop—and rise together in real belonging.
- Embodied Leadership & Influence: Move from performative leadership into true presence, integrity, and impact.
What Participants Are Experiencing:
"They become a mirror - these women - and in their reflection, I glimpse parts of myself I couldn't see alone. That glimpse gives me the freedom to choose differently, and to try on something new, right then and there."
- Barbara
"Nothing has given me clearer visibility into my relational patterns. I can actually witness my old strategies—like hiding or shrinking—in real time. That awareness is what’s allowing me to choose differently and lead with more agency, sovereignty, and self-trust."
- Circle Participant
"There’s something sacred and transformative that happens every time we come together in this form. It's not your typical social experience. I always leave not only with a deeper understanding of who I am—but with a deeply fulfilling experience of relating to other women that is not typical in our everyday life."
- Circle Participant
"Personally it feels like a deeply transformative learning lab to help me connect more deeply with myself and see my tendencies, strengths, vulnerabilities and blind spots while providing a real ground to experiment with growing my range, strength and authenticity."
- Sandra
Interested In Joining The Circle?
Reach out to learn more and hear about upcoming groups.
Email us at:
Team @ KristaVanDerveer.com
About Your Facilitators
Barbs Edwards
Barbs Edwards is a longtime facilitator, coach, and guide who has spent the past three decades helping people come home to themselves and one another. With a background in psychotherapy and a career shaped by work with global organizations, women’s leadership programs, and top executive teams, she brings fierce compassion, deep listening, and a gift for creating spaces where truth can emerge. Knowing we teach what we most need to learn, Barbs has led programs such as the Remarkable Women’s Program, Self-Authorship, and The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Whether she’s on stage, in a boardroom, or sitting in circle, she tracks what’s most alive and what’s ready to shift.
At the heart of her work is a longing to help women reclaim the parts of themselves they’ve set aside in the push to be perfect, productive, or strong. She believes that when women gather in circle with courage and realness, something profound is awakened—shameless brilliance returns, and new choices become possible. This offering is the synthesis of her life’s work: a space where honesty meets tenderness, laughter and grief coexist, and each woman is invited to rise into her fullest expression.
Krista Van Derveer
Krista Van Derveer is a leadership and relationship coach who helps others find their voice, step into embodied leadership, and create relationships that expand what's possible. With over 20 years of experience in executive coaching, consulting, and transformational group work, she supports women in leading from their deepest truth—personally and professionally.
Her journey began in male-dominated corporate spaces, where repeated experiences of gender bias and crossed boundaries sparked a fire to challenge unconscious power dynamics—both within herself and the systems and people around her. That fire became a lifelong commitment to helping women heal their injured self perceptions and perceived limitations, and start living and leading their lives from a sense of wholeness, authentic clarity, real courage, and deep presence.
Krista's led retreats, executive off-sites, and women’s leadership programs including High Impact Women, a stage-speaking journey for women to articulate and embody their calling. She has coached C-suite leaders, emerging visionaries, and women in life transition who are ready to grow their leadership and impact from the inside out.
She is also the co-host of The Art of We podcast with her husband, Dr. Will Van Derveer, where they share their 24 relationship agreements and the tools they use to build a purpose-driven marriage that fuels their individual and shared missions.
Ready To Experience The Circle
For Yourself?
Email us at: Team @ KrsitaVanDerveer.com
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